Upcoming Screenings

20Oct11

IFCO’s Indie Filmmaker Series Presents:

New Approaches to Documentary and Sound Space
The Experimental Documentary Short Films of Mike Rollo

Friday, November 4th, 2011
The Collection (56 ByWard Market – Downstairs of the Mercury Lounge)
Screening at 730pm
Free!!

http://www.ifco.ca/indi.html

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Ghosts and Gravel Roads is screening in Chicago!

The Chicago Underground Film Festival Presents:

Salonathon Spooktacular on October 31st

Screening at the Beauty Bar (1444 W. Chicago Ave)
9pm
http://thebeautybar.com/chicago

Organized by Bryan Wendorf (Programmer and Artistic Director of the Chicago Underground Film Festival)


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The Broken Altar – Potashville / Twin Pines

24Aug11

Wrapped up shooting the Saskatchewan part of The Broken Altar hitting up nine drive-ins (both operational and abandoned) in seven days. There are four drive-in theatres currently operational in Saskatchewan: the Prairie Dog in Carlyle, the Twilight in Wolseley, the Jubilee in Watrous, and the Clearwater in Kyle. Unfortunately one of the abandoned drive ins, the Twin Pines in Prince Albert, was demolished the week I arrived in the province. This drive-in theatre was a childhood memory of mine that I wanted to capture on film but now all I have is a simple Holga photo of the screen taken at the beginning of July (see photo below). Along the way I discovered small treasures and tokens from the abandoned drive-ins such as the programs pictured above dating from 1977 and 1983 from the Potashville drive-in.

Twin Pines (Demolished August 2011)


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The Broken Altar_Volume 1

01Aug11

Shooting has commenced for my new film The Broken Altar. Here are a few stills to tickle your fancy!


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Painlevé: Revisited

20May11
I have been watching a number works lately about films and nature – complimented with the observations from  Scott MacDonald in his chapter Up Close and Political: Three Short Ruminations on Nature Film from Adventures in Perception. I am currently enamoured by  the films of Jean Painlevé who was the son of Paul Painlevé the mathematician and French Prime Minister (1917 and 1925). Jean Painlevé’s films have a poetic and magical sensibility where he is able to capture undersea creatures in their natural habitat. The films have a clear scientific presence (Painlevé studied math and biology when he was a student) but are constructed with a passion for aesthetic principals, logically influenced from his contact with the surrealist artists of the 1920s. He would later star in Un Chien Andalou (1929) and provide the text for Georges Franju’s The Blood of Beasts (1949) (MacDonald p.165).

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Vhils

28Apr11

As the paint from my ceiling starts to bubble and the drywall cracking from the rain collecting on my roof (a problem that soon will be fixed when the rain stops!) I am reminded of the work from street artist Alexandre Farto (aka Vhils) and his portraits carved from decayed layers of brick and mortar. Hailing from Lisbon, Vihls tears away layers of material to create complex bas relief sculptures. Vilhs explains “With my work, I try to delve into the several layers that compose the edifice of history, to take the shadows cast by this model of uniform development to try and understand what lies behind it” (Telegraph).

Website: Alexandre Farto (Vihls)


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Off the Rails…

05Mar11
Lately I’ve been feeling the need to pack up and travel across the country by train. Perhaps I’m feeling nostalgic, remembering the trip I took with my father when I was nine years old riding the rails through the rocky mountains.  Memories I will never forget: the majestic mountainscapes, the rhythm of the wheels on the steel tracks, and the folding of darkness as the train soared through cavernous tunnels cutting off my vision. In Canada, traveling long distance by train is expensive so I often purchase a plane ticket for the convenience of speed. I will soon embrace the rails again, but for now I can only simply enjoy these films as I ponder a voyage in the near future.

Rush Hour (1970)

Rush Hour is included in the BFI’s British Transport Films DVD

 

Snow (1963)

Directed by Geoffrey Jones, a celebrated British filmmaker, whose work I admire for his inventive and radical use of editing and sound design.

 

The Railrodder (1965)

A Buster Keaton classic by the National Film Board of Canada.  Directed by Gerald Potterton.

Other films to watch:

Roman Kroitor’s fantastic documentary Paul Tomkowicz: Street Railway Switchman (1953). Available on the NFB website in high quality.
Sergei Loznitsa’s The Train Stop is a haunting dreamworld of sleeping passengers in a remote train station in Russia. Here is an interview with Sergei  for  the New York Film Festival (2010) about his new film My Joy, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010. *Although there is a link attached to the title of this film, I highly recommend that you see it projected in 35mm.

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Irina Werning: Back to the Future

19Feb11

FLOR, MALE, SIL IN 1983 & 2010

Image © Irina Werning

LUCIA IN 1956 & 2010, Buenos Aires

Image © Irina Werning

Irina Werning is an Argentinean photographer currently working on series entitled Back to the Future, where she retrieves old photographs from people’s homes and reconstructs the original image with the same people whom have now aged considerably, creating a haunting but also humorous juxtaposition of past and present.  Werning states on her website, “Most of us are fascinated by their retro look but to me, it’s imagining how people would feel and look like if they were to reenact them today… A few months ago, I decided to actually do this. So, with my camera, I started inviting people to go back to their future”.

I love her other work as well and I recommend checking out her website at irinawerning.com/


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Film / Video Logos

12Feb11

Great throwback to 1970s / 80s VHS logos.  Remember Vestron?

Thanks to the blog signalnoise.


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The Films of Ellie Epp

09Feb11

CinemaSpace presents: Series PARALLAX VIEWS

EROTICS OF ATTENTION: FILMS OF ELLIE EPP
One-Day Screening Event w/ the Filmmaker Plus
LIS RHODES’S 16mm film Pictures On Pink Paper

Legendary Canadian filmmaker, writer and philosopher Ellie Epp screens her four 16mm films followed by a Q&A with the artist. Alongside her films, she will introduce Pictures On Pink Paper, a film by British artist Lis Rhodes.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER AND CINEMASPACE: Born in Alberta, Ellie Epp began filmmaking in London, U.K., where she frequented the London Filmmakers’ Co-op and met avant-garde filmmakers such as Sally Potter, Annabel Nicolson and Lis Rhodes in the early 1970s. In Vancouver, Epp was instrumental in the founding of the Women’s Interart Co-op in 1975. Epp holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D from Simon Fraser University specializing in embodied epistemology. She currently lives in San Diego, California.
“Framing of a slide is absolute. You can’t fix it later. You only have once chance. People have said they can see in my work that I’m coming from still photography. I can see that too, but I think the fixed frame is appropriate to the kind of film I make, that sense of someone standing and staring. The fixed frame says that I’ve given the stage to the thing I’m looking at, I’m letting it take me. It is a kind of erotic.” (Ellie Epp, from “As If an Interview”)
CinemaSpace is dedicated to promoting independent film and video. Its programming encompasses local, national and international productions and invites artists, scholars and specialists to foster critical dialogue and exchange with the audience.

TICKETS: Adults $10 | Students/Seniors $8 Call now for advance tickets: 514.739.7944

For program information, visit www.segalcentre.org/en/cinemaspace

Ellie Epp’s website: www.ellieepp.com


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CinemaSpace New Programming Series

01Feb11

It’s very exciting to have a fresh new series of experimental programming being established in Montreal.  From the Segal Centre, CinemaSpace’s new co-directors Daichi Saito and Malena Szlam are launching a new annual programming series which was unveiled this past week:

CROSSOVER – Exploration and experience of cinema through expanded approaches

PARALLAX VIEWS – Takes a close look into the vibrant and complex world of non-fiction film

LIGHTSTRUCK – Illuminating works from the vanguard of experimental cinema

The first presentation from the CROSSOVER series was introduced last week with the work of Paul Clipson.  The first program of Clipson’s work presented eight Super 8 films followed by a second program the next day with a live music performance by Roger Tellier Craig and Bernardino Femminielli.  Paul Clipson’s work is mesmerizing to watch.  All his films are shot and projected on Super 8, full of beautiful colour, abstract layering, and complex rhythmic movements.  My personal highlights from both nights were Clipson’s Light from the Mesa (2010) featuring the music of Barn Owl and Union (2010) a dazzling collage of colour and black and white images of forest landscapes and nocturnal cityscapes woven in layers of time.

I am looking forward to the next series in the coming months featuring the work of Ellie Epp, Lewis Klahr, and Daniel Barrow.

Please check the Segal Centre for more information

Artist: Paul Clipson


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